CHAPTER 1

I. What is psychophysiology?

How does psychophysiology differ from physiological psychology?

Table 1

Discipline, Subjects, IV, DV, Methods
physiological, animals, physiological, behavioral, invasive
psychophysiology, humans, behavioral ,physiological, noninvasive

II. Historical Overview

A.Recognizing that the brain as the seat of behavior
1.Trephining - evidence that it was practiced in the Stone Age as long as 250,000 years ago and was still practiced in medieval times as a method of releasing "demons."

2.Egyptian writings from 3000 - 1500 BC indicate that their physicians knew that brain injury could cause aphasia and paralysis.

3.Greek writers such as Hippocrates from about 500 BC located cognition and emotion in the brain, and proposed the idea that the relative balance of bodily "humors" (black and yellow bile, blood, and phlegm) controlled behavior.

B.Recognizing the relation between physiological changes and psychological processes
1.Erasistratos (a Greek physician in 300 BC) was consulted about the "illness" of a young prince who occasionally exhibited symptoms such as sweating, increased heart rate, and loss of skin pallor. He was able to diagnose "love sickness" because he observed that the symptoms only appeared when the prince's young stepmother was nearby.

C.Phrenology - the 19th century practice of reading the bumps on the head to measure individual differences in IQ, personality, etc.

III. Organization of the nervous system

A. Central nervous system (CNS) measures - EEG, ERPs

B. Peripheral Measures
1. Somatic nervous system - EMG, EOG

2. Autonomic nervous system (ANS)

Table 2
Measure, Sympathetic branch, Parasympathetic branch

Heart rate (HR), Y, Y
Blood Pressure (BP), Y, Y
Electrodermal (EDA), Y, N
Pupillary response, Y, N
Blood volume, Y, N